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Hello
I was ripping some CDs yesterday and found I had one that played very distorted on my new PC. (PC is new to me, it is actually a 2013 model)
The CD plays OK on another PC and on my hifi. My PC also plays all other audio CDs perfectly.
I have searched for new firmware but cant find any for that specific drive.
I have updated the PC bios .
I also changed the region for the drive to UK.

We moved the DVD player into Sams PC and the same happens there, the CD in question is very distorted.
Now I have Sams DVD drive the CD plays perfectly on my PC.

The CD in question is The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac and the DVD drive is a PLDS dvd+-rw dh-16acs.
So what is it that could cause this? It has me stumped.

Could the CD have some sort of copy protection?
In the earlier days of CD this was quite common and certain types of copy protection would even stop playback only on computer disc drives. The issue it seemed was with the drives themselves rather than any D/A conversion downstream of the raw digital feed, as I understood it. It was a bit of an issue as some CD audio players would also have problems with copy protected discs. I think it fell out of use as it was never long before the serious hackers found ways around it.
I have an early CD of Tubular Bells 2003 which has this and there is a very poor quality MP3 on the disc for playing on computer drives, this is stated on the CD.

Brainwash or otherwise, 'we' went through a stage of green-penning (a matt bright green paint in a fibre-tip applicator) th outer edge of CD's in an attempt to 'improve the sound' of the CD's treated. At the time, we convinced ourselves that it worked, but alarm bells rang for me when a friend did this to the outer edge of one or two LP's and we both thought we heard an improvement after (deck was a Notts Analogue Spacedeck/Rega RB300/AT-F5 into a Quad 66/606 and '57 electrostatics). These days, twenty five years plus on from those times, my CD's, treated or not, 'sound' better than ever...

I can't speak for the distorted sound from one particular drive playing this particular disc, but there has to be a proper definitive reason for this.

Very interesting but how do you tell the difference, are there markings on a SACD to identify it. I cant see any blurb on the cover to advertise this, I would have thought it would be something the producers would like to boast about on the cover.

Plus, if there is any 'Compact Disc Digital Audio' logo on it the it shouldn't have copy protection as it makes it no longer confirm to the red book standard and as such is not allowed to display the aforementioned logo, although this is no guarantee as not all companies play by the books.

The audio CD itself will not "play" without distortion in this particular DVD RW drive.
How do I tell if it is a Sony copy protected CD.
Mike

Because it will be a Sony BMG release dated around the time of the Rootkit scandal. It will also have left a trail of spyware on your computer, neatly hidden for which you will need a dedicated removal tool. All the gory details on Wikipedia if you search Sony Rootkit.

Here are some photos of the CD, they came out better than I expected.
I can see no markings to confirm it is a 'Compact Disc Digital Audio' as mentioned.
There does not appear to be anything which says it is copy protected, can anyone tell if it is.
Reading stuff on the www, it is looking more and more like this may be as a result of copy protection, which is effective on some DVD drives, but not the copy protection does not work on all DVD drives and the CD plays and rips fine.
The problem is there is so much stuff on the www that is just make-believe.

So if it is Warners copy protection I wonder if it is older drives which ignore copy protection or newer drives.

It is not a big deal as I have now ripped the CD on another drive, but I would be interested to know the facts as to the cause.

Are you playing the 'ripped' file or playing direct from the CD?
What OS & software are you using?

Direct playing from a modern drive has to content with the factor that the drive is designed to read data at a rate multiple times the rate required for audio and has trouble running at such a low speed without hitting a buffer under or over run. Best to avoid direct playing …
dc

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